[ZDP] OpenContent issues

[Martijn Faassen]

[David Ascher saying O'Reilly has people interested in Zope]
 
[Paul talking about how Zope is edging closer to the 'up into infinity'
part of the growth curve]
 
> > 2) I got the vague impression from some DC folks that there
> > were thoughts
> >    a long time ago re: a Zope book.  I don't have any specifics.  Ask
> >    someone with a @digicool.com address =).
> 
> I'm definately the one to come to for vague impressions :^)  

And such informative vague impressions they are! I enjoy getting the
kind of 'inside knowledge' as you gave earlier in the mail.

> Let me state unequivocally that we will directly support a demonstrably serious
> effort to create a Zope book.  However, we might attach some strings
> (such as requiring that drafts be Open Content).

Right. I will now go read the Open Content license finally, and we'll
try to come with some decision later on this week.

On the ZDP, though: 

I think our course should not be directed towards a book -- we should be
interested in documention of all levels though, from beginner to
advanced. If very well written, documentation of this sort starts
resembling a book anyway. If we don't reach that quality, we still have
documentation anyway (more docs are always better than less docs :).

This is not to say that the book format of documentation isn't useful
anyway.

If in a couple of months the ZDP seems on track to indeed produce such
'paper book quality' material, we'll go back to the paper book
discussion. Of course we'll all keep this in the back of our minds
anyway, it just shouldn't be the dominant goal right now.

> One other note on the subject of documentation.  The PHP folks have a
> publicly-annotated system for authoring their manuals.  Pretty neat, not
> awfully hi-tech but they've been at it for a long time.

Okay, people could go take a look at that and report back on this list.
:)

Regards,

Martijn